Are NEXRAD sites “electrifying” the atmosphere?
No. Certainly no more than your local radio stations. NEXRAD stations transmit bursts of 750kwatts for 7 seconds of every hour. (Source) and there are a total of 140 of them for a total of 105,000kwatts for 7 seconds every hour. Considering that they only transmit for 7 seconds (0.19%) each hour, the effective amount of energy transmitted into the atmosphereic is 105,000 * 0.0019 = 199.5 kilowatts. Now, consider that the average cell phone transmits about 3 watts and that there are 180 million cell phones in use in the U.S. alone and even if we assume that only 1% (1.8 million) of them are in use at any given time, that still is 5,400 kilowatts–over 27 times the amount of energy transmitted each hour by NEXRAD. Also consider that this radio station is transmitting at 50 kilowatts watts and that there are hundreds of other similarly-powered stations around the country and world–it only takes 4 of them to equal the amount of power transmitted into the atmosphere by NEXRAD. A single bol
